I'm kind of suspicious of the data, because I think the FFL data is pulled from the selection the applicant makes on the Form 471, and so a school with multiple locations might apply as a district. Elsewhere, the DoE put the total number of districts in the country at 16,850. In the other direction, I have seen single-school districts apply as a school. Also, consortia contain applicants from the other 3 categories, so participation is higher for all categories. But let's just take the numbers as roughly correct.

93% is much higher than I expected. I would have guessed 80%. I mean, anything that's voluntary, it's hard to get more than 80% participation. And I see a lot of districts not applying, but I guess that's because I'm looking for those districts. If we use the DoE's other total number of districts (16,850), the participation drops to 76%, which I find more believable. Still, that's a good participation rate.

The libraries number is also higher than I expected. Between the need for a tech plan, the thorny first-amendment infringement inherent in CIPA, and the small telecom/Internet spending for most libraries, I had expected to see a number closer to 20%.

The schools participation is kind of embarassing. Only 1 in 5 apply, which is lower than I had expected. And since most of them have some kind of filtering in place, it's really just a matter of tossing together a tech plan and filling out the paperwork. Now with no tech plan required for Priority One, perhaps we'll see a boom in requests from this sector.

In general, I wonder if we'll be able to see a change in participation now that the tech plan requirement has been relaxed.

If I were more ambitious, I'd look at the percentage of entities in each category get Priority Two funding. I'll bet school participation would drop into the single digits.

2 comments:

Dan,When the NPRM that resulted in the 6th Report and Order came out, we responded with some data demonstrating that Priority Two funding has been allocated to roughly 13% of the applicants over the life of the program. That means that 87% of applicants get zero P2 dollars...Now, you can take that and run with it...LOL

About Me

Involved with the E-Rate program since 1997, On-Tech's president, Dan Riordan, has continuously assisted schools and libraries in obtaining E-Rate funding, first as a trainer, then as a district employee, and now as an E-Rate consultant.